A “Cavalier Attitude On The Part Of Buyers”
The Democrat and Chronicle reports from New York. “In a year that has seen big swings in sales, the Rochester-area real estate market is settling into a slower mode, one in which buyers have more choices and sellers have to make more concessions. Houses are sitting on the market longer because of an increase in inventory. This is the year that the market started to cool after five years of a hot seller’s market, real estate brokers say.”
“‘This year has been extremely challenging,’ said Nunzio Salafia, broker associate in Greece and Brighton. ‘The oil companies have taken so much out of people’s paychecks.’”
“Sales in the region started to falter in late summer, according to statistics compiled by the Greater Rochester Association of Realtors. For the past four months, the number of closings has been down at least 6 percent compared with the same months of 2005. ‘It felt like a stop in mid-October,’ said Bob Miglioratti, chairman of the Realtors association. ‘We’re trending toward a buyer’s market.’”
“Frank Berardi is all too familiar with the shift from a seller’s to a buyer’s market. He listed his Chili home for sale late last year but decided to pull it off the market until spring of this year, when real estate activity picks up. He thought he had it sold in April, until the prospective buyer failed to show up for the closing.”
“Berardi, meanwhile, had already purchased a home in Conesus, Livingston County. Anxious to sell his 13-year-old, four-bedroom Chili house, he dropped the price to $225,000 from $234,900. It still hasn’t sold, was taken off the market last week and will be relisted in mid-January.”
“As Berardi discovered, the change in the market has changed the approach of some buyers. ‘There is this cavalier attitude on the part of buyers that if I don’t like this one, I’ll go out and buy another,’ said Realtor associate Mark Siwiec in Pittsford.”
“Siwiec said three trends prevailed in 2006: the market slowdown; the need for sellers to get their properties in mint condition; and the tendency of more buyers to cancel contracts.”
The Boston Herald in Massachusetts. “Bay State home sellers had little to give thanks for this Thanksgiving, new figures show. The Warren Group reported yesterday that just 4,130 Massachusetts houses changed hands last month, the market’s worst November in 14 years.”
“Sales also fell 13.5 percent when compared with November 2005 levels. ‘It’s clear that (Massachusetts) is still in a slump,’ Warren Group CEO Tim Warren said.”
“House values fell across all of Greater Boston except Middlesex County, where median prices remained at $400,000, unchanged from November 2005. Elsewhere, Suffolk County median prices dropped 13 percent to $330,000, while Norfolk County lost 7.9 percent to hit $375,000.”
“Essex County median prices eased 6.2 percent to $350,000. Condo sales fell 10.1 percent statewide when compared with November 2005 levels.”
The Telegram from Massachusetts. “The state’s housing market continued its double digit fall in the sales of single-family homes and condominiums last month, with Worcester County experiencing a drop in sales of more than 20 percent from November 2005, according to data released yesterday.”
“In Worcester County, November sales of single-family homes were down from 656 in November 2005 to 524 last month, a drop of 20.12 percent. The median price of a single-family home dropped nearly 10.3 percent in Worcester County, from $267,500 in November 2005 to $240,000 last month.”
“Condominium sales in Worcester County were down 26 percent from November 2005, 223 to 164 last month. The median sales price for a condominium in Worcester County dropped nearly 18 percent year over year, $237,000 to $195,060, according to the data. Through November this year, all of the state’s 14 counties have seen a decline in single-family home prices.”
“Terence F. Egan, editor of Banker & Tradesman, said it is hard to tell if the housing market correction is starting to level off. ‘It’s tough to tell. I’m wondering if we’re bumping along the bottom or if there is a kind of recovery on the horizon,’ he said. ‘Next month we may see the numbers slip and dip again. It’s too early to call it right now.’”
“Massachusetts experienced a decade of rapid housing price increases that ended in 2005, driving the median selling price of a home to among the highest in the nation. ‘It hit home a little harder. The areas where there was a run-up in prices are hit hardest,’ he said.”
“‘Nationally, we’re not looking at the kind of price correction we had in Eastern Massachusetts and some areas of California, places where prices skyrocketed. It was bound to happen. It can’t go up double digit year after year.’”
“With prices slowly coming down, buyers are waiting for the best deal, he said. ‘What you have here is a little bit of a waiting game,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a lot of sellers competing to attract buyers. That will push down prices. Buyers are looking for signs that the market has hit bottom or stabilized, so that a year from now they won’t regret it.’”
“There is this cavalier attitude on the part of buyers that if I don’t like this one, I’ll go out and buy another.”
This cracked me up. Like someone shouldn’t be choosy when making the single most expensive and important purchase of their lifetime? How have so many people gotten so far away from that basic fact?
Yea I don’t get it either. It’s like everyone has forgoten how to use a calculator.
Or forgotten how to add…
kinda of like the cavalier attitude sellers had up until this change in market.
Listing price 250,000
offer 250,000
offer declined! why? not high enough wtf
They never learned how to use a calculator in the first place. What we teach in school is a joke!! We should make it manditory for all students to learn basic finance in the 10th grade and pass a manditory test. OUCH the financial institutions and mortage brokers would not like that…No more funny loans!!!
How about MANDATORY spelling instruction?
how about mandatory horse-whipping of pedants.
eastcoaster,
Good point, but realtors need to understand now that they’ve sculpted the sales process of buying a home down to the level of say buying a car or set of golf clubs what do they expect? The level of “impulse” buying over the last several years has been alarming! We all know couples that “went to the coast for the weekend” and came back with a tan AND a condo!
I recently looked at a condo in Vegas and the realtor (young gal) told me that a “super-model” just bought one in that very same complex! Well gee, where do I sign? Sure, I’ll obligate myself to another 30 years of debt in the off hand chance I might get a “glimpse” of some model!? Sure, sounds great.
Unreal. I think buying a condo based on living near a supermodel more defines a cavalier attitude than being selective. This industry has gone insane.
Cavalier: marked by or given to offhand and often disdainful dismissal of important matters
Amazing the choice of words these RE clowns use.
“Berardi, meanwhile, had already purchased a home in Conesus, Livingston County. Anxious to sell his 13-year-old, four-bedroom Chili house, he dropped the price to $225,000 from $234,900. It still hasn’t sold, was taken off the market last week and will be relisted in mid-January.”
Same old story lets relist it…
One house that we went to an open house back in June in Maine, I asked the realtor how long it is been on the market she said stated “It was just put on the market but and offer was made below the listing and the builder was seeing if he could get a better offer.” Three months later I checked the listing and it was withdrawn from the MLS and it still sits empty until they relist it in Spring…..
With all of the houses relisted in Spring or with a relisting with new broker, how long do you think that a Seller and Realtors will they realize its time to significantly REDUCE their overinflated price? When will they stop playing the take off market and relist game?
Those idiot, cavalier non-buyers. What, they think they can walk around enjoying their daily lives, and NOT buy my house, despite my urgent need to sell?
LOL!!
Repost from the Colorado Tsunami thread:
I felt that it is important to repost this due to an apparent sympathy for Mexican/Hispanic GF who took signed on to mortgage loan contracts for which they are not qualified. Thankfully, most of this blog do not subscribe to these mis-placed sympathies.
“I disagree. For the capable professional, it does not take “years” to learn to read legal/financial docs. Learning to read these docs comes from law school (usually Civil, RE Law or FL) or an appropriate accounting class. Hours or weeks, yes, but not years. If it takes someone “years” to learn to read accounting statements or financial docs, then I would respectfully submit that person, out of concern for the best interests of the client, should look for another line of work.
Having assisted hundreds of low-income Spanish speakers re law and having prepared financial/asset statements for them for the court, I can assure you that they are as tempted by greed as anyone else. Their nationality or ethnicity does not impute ex post facto innocence. Most of the fraud they encounter is in their own communities and from Realtors who are of Mexican descent.
Everyone, regardless of nationality or ethnicity, is responsible for their actions. Everyone has the freedom to seek a second or third opinion (or 4th or 5th, etc) from another professional or experienced friend and to take docs home to study.
Justice, in this country, is blind.
~MIsstrial”
if I don’t like this one, I’ll go out and buy another.
They should buy houses they don’t like?
lol the cavalier attitude is a classic
Yea. How dare they not by Mr. FB’s house after he had the “jetted tub” and granite countertops installed!
Uppity bastards!
are all realtors idiots ? bad oil companies- didn’t bother anyone last year
broker associate in Greece and Brighton. ‘The oil companies have taken so much out of people’s paychecks.’”
What a moron. That is one of the stupidest things I have heard in a long while. Maybe I could buy that argument if we were talking about Christmas shopping, but not home buying. Idiot.
>>“‘This year has been extremely challenging,’ said Nunzio Salafia, broker associate in Greece and Brighton. ‘The oil companies have taken so much out of people’s paychecks.’”
It’s like they have a little spinner from one of those child’s games. The change in the market is due to….(spin) interest rates-those damned bloggers-weather-oil prices. Ding ding ding, we have a winner.
Brings to mind the nightly business wrap up: “Stocks went up today on renewed prospects for a Federal Reserve interest rate cut” or
“stocks went down today on investor profit-taking,” as though the business reporter took an exit poll at the close of the market to learn the explanation for today’s random blip in share prices.
SNL once sent this up brilliantly imagining other (but no less silly) explanations for the stock market saying something like “Stocks rebounded in late trading due to news the resurgance of the short story.”
Just for one I’d like to see “Stocks went up today but no one has any idea why…”
Yea!!! Try more buyers than sellers. Works every time!!
Who do the surplus buyers buy from, if not sellers?
GetStucco,
You’re spot on. Those explainations annoy me, too.
Right — that extra $10 a week that I now spend at the gas station was the tipping point that convinced me $700,000 was just too much to pay for a new McMansion.
ngas under $6 now
last year over $11
forget gas
I haven’t used a realwhore since the 70’s
w the net why would anyone need one ?
‘The oil companies have taken so much out of people’s paychecks.’”
wtf??? Some of the stupid $hit that falls out of the mouth of these ham and eggers makes one wonder if they have a clue at all. This statement so much reminds me of Glenda (the blog RE agent) when she said, “9/11 is responsible for driving prices up.”
Don’t know the context that quote was made in, but it’s fundamentally correct.
9-11 -> Stock Market shut down for first time in history -> Trillions wiped out -> interest rates dropped to boost economy -> real estate mania begins.
GS,
Well, I think we’ve all gotten a little used to it. Last year we were told everything from home buyers were being preoccupied with Christmas shopping to all the “awful” weather to then being preoccupied with the Superbowl for crying out loud. It’s just that time of year when realtors roll out the appropriate lame excuses that will hopefully appear plausible given the particular season.
Those cavalier buyers and their inability to pay mortgages…
“‘This year has been extremely challenging,’ said Nunzio Salafia, broker associate in Greece and Brighton. ‘The oil companies have taken so much out of people’s paychecks.’”
Listen to this idiot, as if oil prices can make or break people’s budget. Oh gas is back to $1.50 per gallon now I can afford a 400K POS . YEs it really has nothing to do with 20% YOY increases , it is allways somebody else : oil companies, media, buyers….
Agreed this is a lame argument, but I don’t think this guy is talking about the impact of $2.50/gal. gasoline when he talks about oil companies taking more money out of paychecks. More likely he is talking about the higher cost of heating oil, which has been significantly higher the past couple years, and in super-cold Rochester could mean $500-700/month winter heating bills. I live in southern Virginia and last winter had my first $400/mon. heating bill…. In upstate NY it’s got to be much worse.
“‘This year has been extremely challenging,’ said Nunzio Salafia, broker associate in Greece and Brighton. ‘The oil companies have taken so much out of people’s paychecks.’”
This RE crash is a short term shock caused by over-speculation. A Investor in RE should consider the long term picture..oil prices and global warming ARE things to consider for long term appreciation.
“‘This year has been extremely challenging,’ said Nunzio Salafia, broker associate in Greece and Brighton. ‘The oil companies have taken so much out of people’s paychecks.’”
Uh, like the 6% you jackasses take out of people’s transactions?
Yup, like the posters above, I found the “oil companies” comment the most idiotic quote of the day. As if a $4,000/mo PITI would suddenly look much worse because of $3 gasoline.
‘It felt like a stop in mid-October,’ said Bob Miglioratti, chairman of the Realtors association. ‘We’re trending toward a buyer’s market.’
Unless this time is different, this trend could go on for four or more years. Meanwhile, we are and will remain in a renter’s market.
Miglioratti needs to talk to my Stonington Maine realtor friend, who detected the market’s instantaneous turnaround at 2:38 pm on St. Patrick’s Day 2006. My friend was in fact a bit late to wake up, but certainly beat Migliratti.
The funniest part of all of this… is the market has in reality returned to a more normal pace.
Yet its still turning and will soon become a more rational market. Egad… won’t that be interesting.
I like Jim the realtor’s blog. He’s single handidly doing something to repair his profession’s image. He has a chart up of listing versus sales that would be at home on any bubble blog. He doesn’t spin it. Rather, its a message to sellers to work with him so that he can move their property (not by FUD, but by just dealing with the market as it is).
http://www.bubbleinfo.com/journal/
I still think May is when this all comes together. Its a slow moving train wreck, but already stocked with popcorn.
Neil
Great graph Neil. Thanks!
NEW topic or question
what % do realtors get around the world?
‘We’ve got a lot of sellers competing to attract buyers. That will push down prices. Buyers are looking for signs that the market has hit bottom or stabilized, so that a year from now they won’t regret it.’
If buyers keep looking for signs the market has hit bottom while sellers are pushing down prices due to competition for scarce buyers, then it sounds like prices will keep falling. Nobody wants to try and catch themselves a falling knife.
“Houses are sitting on the market longer because of an increase in inventory.”
… caused by the fact FBs across the country are discovering they borrowed too much with the wrong type of loan and need to dump before they go belly up.
“Increases in energy costs, coupled with the general malaise of the regional economy, were key factors that slowed the pace of house sales to first-time buyers, triggering a chain reaction.”
… yes, that’s it. I wasn’t priced out of traditional mortgage products. Unbeknownst to me I caught some malaise and my pay didn’t increase 300% in 5 years.
“Berardi, meanwhile, had already purchased a home in Conesus, Livingston County. Anxious to sell his 13-year-old, four-bedroom Chili house, he dropped the price to $225,000 from $234,900. It still hasn’t sold, was taken off the market last week and will be relisted in mid-January.”
… good thinking boss. Much better to take it off and relist with everyone else after that massive 4% drop failed to attract anyone. I love reading about all these numbnuts who are relisting in ‘07 - much pain awaits.
Rob
Exactly. See this happening in Maine too. Houses pulled off market in Summer and Fall waiting to be relisted in Spring at new inflated prices. Or houses relisted with new broker at 10% increase in price.
Nice strategy. When your house fails to sell at absurd wishing price, increase the price and relist with the other 20 million GFs. Next spring & summer are going to be mighty entertaining –can’t wait.
Rob,
Exactly. When it’s all said and done what we’ll find is that all buyers in 2003-2005 have managed to accomplish was to “load up” on debt! Very “challenging” and out of control levels at that.
Behind closed doors I’m sure experienced realtors spend most of their waking hours thinking up ways to “prop up” prices in their respective areas. I hate to say it but for the “vets” this is almost a good thing. With so many “newbies” they’ve been forced to share “their” commissions with over the last few years and they’re probably hoping they “wash out”. I’ve already heard many in FL are not renewing for 2007. Good signs.
‘“Houses are sitting on the market longer because of an increase in inventory.”
… caused by the fact FBs across the country are discovering they borrowed too much with the wrong type of loan and need to dump before they go belly up.’
I show on the bits bucket that as of November, vacant new homes were under construction at an 868,000 seasonally-adjusted annual rate. That may also help explain why inventory is on the rise…
‘The oil companies have taken so much out of people’s paychecks.’
Yes, because it was the oil companies that put a gun to your head and forced you to buy that gas guzzling SUV you use for your 60 mile commute to the ‘burbs.
Soccer Mom’s need SUV’s to hold all their soccer balls. Off topic, sorry. In the 1970’s my Mom crammed me, my brother and couple of friends in a VW bug, but SUV’s are safer than a VW bug.
Yes, Cavalier buyers and the perfect match to the roundhead sellers.
Link for the historically challenged:http://www.ecwsa.org/offthecuffbeyoucavalierorroundheadquiz.html
Actually, looking at this link makes me think about how miserable and anti-fun sellers will transition to:-
Triple Bonus Question:
Whenever you can, especially at night, do you…
a) Stay at home and say your appropriate prayers before turning in early for a fresh start of a new day, especially on Saturday evening so you can attend an early mass?
b) Head to the nearest tavern, often after a large a overly filling meal where there was much wastage, grab a tankard of strong drink, and while losing yourself in exactly how many you put away (usually as long as there is money in your purse), dance a jig (and maybe even walk through a fire) and sing every song you know (twice) until the wee hours of the morning - then get up, purge, and be ready to do it all again?
I think the “triple bonus question” was a bit loaded, but it could just be my reading of it.
If I choose option “A”, I am a bible thumping loser, who has no life.
If I choose option “B”, I am a lard ass drunkard, who has no sense of responsibility.
Where is option “C” for those of us who are secular yet levelheaded? A glass of wine with dinner after our 1.5 hour workout; off to bed by 11 types.
Josh
Just can’t portray religion in a positive light, eh? Not even in jest.
I don’t think that going to bed early so that you can get up and go to church the next morning makes a person a “loser.”
To me no, you can’t portray it(religion) in a positive light. I don’t think going to bed early makes you a loser. Whether you goto church or not is another matter. Its HoustonStans implicit statement that godliness is good and that its opposite is depravity that irks the crap out of me. Oh well I suppose I was over-reacting, I wasn’t trying to offend anyone, this time.
Josh
hmmmmmmm
The 3.4 percent rebound in sales last month was the third increase in the past four months. It helped to lift the median price for a new home to $251,700, an increase of 3.2 percent from a year ago. The median price is the point where half the homes sold for more and half for less.
I don’t get it. Is this from one of the posted links, or what? Does it refer to Miami?
Don’t believe the numbers! In the report of new home sales released this morning it said that sales were up 22.5% in the northeast. After reading the article above how can that be? MA had terrible numbers in this article and the news from NY was not much better. These numbers are not the true picture!
Btw: Here’s a link to Economic Numb Nuts Nunzio http://www.rochesterhomelocator.com/ Wow, look at his belly: He’s been polishing off a few too many cupcakes and a roasted squirel or two.He should be charged property taxes on it.
Perhaps Nuncio should get some commercials going along the line of BowFlex. “I’m 49, playing with my organ, a RE manager and living the life of my American dream. If you want a ReMax body, then buy my ReMax workout secret. Only 20 easy payments that can be rolled into a HELOC”.
Houston: Nunzio looks pretty good, tie is straight and hangs down. In the overweight Realtor© category he doesn’t even qualify.
“Wow, look at his belly: He’s been polishing off a few too many cupcakes and a roasted squirel or two.”
He’s from Rochester, NY …. More likely he has been polishing off the Buffalo Wings … Those delectable deep-fried chicken bits, complete with skin (for added fat and cholesterol) and then dunked into a pool of wing sauce comprised of butter and tabasco. Perfect recipe for a distended abdomen and future triple bypass. Upstate NYers love them, especially with the beer (more empty calories).
I grew up in Buffalo. Real wings are deep fried and served with a sauce made from Louisiana Hot Sauce, and are always served with celery sticks with a blue cheese sauce. Preferred drink: Genesee Cream Ale. Ups the calorie count significantly.
Speaking of Relisting, been watching the market intently here in central CT and here’s a sample of listings:
209 Gospel Lane, Portland
$235,900 originally listed: 06/04/06
229,900 reduced 13-Nov
227,900 reduced 27-Nov
227,900 relist 12-4
215,900 reduced 18-Dec
15 Pearl Street, Glastonbury
330,000 orginally listed 06/26/06
315,000 reduced 08/23
309,900 reduced 10/06
305,000 reduced 11/16
305,000 relisted 12-6
2298 Hebron Ave Glastonbury
309,000 orginally listed 08/11/06
299,900 reduced
294,000 reduced
289,000 reduced 10/19
284,900 11-7 Relisted
279,000 reduced 11/17
274,000 reduced 12/06
243 Long Hill Drive, Glastonbury
314,900 orginally listed 08/19/06
304,900 reduced 09/30
299,900 reduced 10/04
287,000 reduced 10/16
277,000 reduced 11/06
273,500 reduced 12/21
(due to be relisted shortly, I’m sure!)
I love when they relist at the exact same price that wasn’t selling in the first place. Makes no sense at all.
Sounds to me like the seller blamed the non sale on the RE agent.
Then the seller fired the agent and re-listed at the same (lowered) price with a new agent.
They will soon find that it wasn’t the agent.
The prices are still WAY WAY WAY too high. The reductions are nominal, laughable.
Oh the foreclosures and financial bombs about to be set off are going to be a sight to see.
I have remained a renter all of these years, preferring basically no carrying costs and portability and liquidity in my investments.
The sneers and snubs I have received from people because I rent have been amusing. (In California the idea of renting is for low class poor people only, unlike the East coast where renting is not so class driven.)
One house that we went to an open house back in June in Maine, I asked the realtor how long it is been on the market she stated “It was just put on the market but and offer was made below the listing and the builder was seeing if he could get a better offer.” Three months later I checked the listing with my realtor and it was withdrawn from the MLS and it still sits empty until they relist it in Spring…..
With all of the houses relisted in Spring or with a relisting with new broker, how long do you think that a Seller and Realtors will realize its time to significantly REDUCE their overinflated price? When will they stop playing the take off market and relist game? I can’t believe that they are carrying the costs of maintaining an empty house for this long.
It is hard for me to find out what the real stats are for all the cancellations and withdrawn. Based on what I have seen out of 100 listings in my neighborhood . I have seen 10 cancellations or withdrawn.
Unfortunately I can’t get the official total stats because us ordinary folks in Maine are not entitled to view cancellations or withdrawn or what was sold. We can’t even find out where the house address is selling on the MLS . Have to check with a realtor to find that info out. Any required info like location and yard size to make a purchase you have to call a realtor. So it would be really easy to prop up the overpriced market.
I am so tired of this. I have seen a least 20 empty houses out of a hundred that this is happening. I will buy when the realtors stop the relisting game.
I have an equally hard time trying to determine whether a house removed from the MLS has been sold or just plain removed to be relisted later. Our local real estate section is so far behind and it seems that the majority of the “removed” never show up. Am I to assume No Sale? There are far too many!
Patiently waiting in ME,
If you decide to wait until Realtors “stop playing games” with inventory and/or sales numbers, you will be waiting a VERY long time. Never gonna happen, which is why we all need to do our own independent research and buy vs. rent/incomes vs. price calculations to determine whether or not a house is overpriced in a given area.
As far as the relisting game goes, it will continue until would-be sellers & FBs are completely exhausted. Thanks to human nature and the phenomenon of “mental accounting”, almost no one involved in this Ponzi scheme is rational enough to take a small loss to avoid an ever bigger loss in the future. They will hold on, HELOC, serially refi, etc. until the bitter end, when the lender forcloses or forces a short sale.
Based on previous boom/bust credit cycles, this is likely to take several years to fully play out. Don’t expect a bottom anytime soon. For your sake, I hope you really are “patiently waiting”.
It will be interesting to see what the houses next Summer after they have been relisted. I have seen a few homes that have been on the market for over six months and the sellers do reduce the price by 20 percent but they are over the tax assessed value and they are still on the market. The houses that have sold are within the tax assessed value but the majority are over 30 percent of the listed tax assessed value. The recent tax assesments were done at 95 percent of the market value in 2005. So you can clearly see the wishing prices of the seller. My rent is half of what I would pay for a similar place plus I like the fact that I can save some money. Unfortunately I need to move in to a bigger place. I have decided that I can move by renting a bigger house for far less than buying. I don’t want to see my 20 percent downpayment go down the drain in a year or fund a sellers early retirement. Much to my husbands dismay he wants to buy within the next year and thinks if we stay there 10 years we will recover the loss. Call me a cavlier buyer but I’m waiting for the fundamentals of local income to price of home is within the average persons salary and it just doesn’t add up. It seems to me that if a person buys now they are on really shaky ground. I recall the 89 real estate market and several banks were calling the loans because the mortgage exceeded the market price.
It’s nice to see a case where the wife is the rational level-headed one and the husband wants to jump the gun. Counters the “Suzanne” female nesting-instinct stereotype a bit.
If rents are half of what monthly PITI carrying costs are, that’s a red flag that prices still have a long way to drop. I recommend sticking to your guns and keeping your eyes on the fundamentals. It’s painful to sit on the sidelines when prices are shooting up, but it’s very gratifying not to be involved in the train wreck on the way down.
Cavalier … yea if cavalier means missing, yes buyers are definetly cavalier. Very cavalier indeed.
Cool.
Cow_tipping.
Imagine that. A cavalier attitude on the part of buyers.
LOL
““As Berardi discovered, the change in the market has changed the approach of some buyers. ‘There is this cavalier attitude on the part of buyers that if I don’t like this one, I’ll go out and buy another,’ said Realtor associate Mark Siwiec in Pittsford.””
When wisdom and greed meet , greed always wins!!! Until reality and common sense meet and we all know who wins! LOWER LOWER,LOWER,LOWER Prices.
The new ploy is insulting buyers and shaming them for not buying at the ask.
“Just another Amazing Real Estate Story in Sunny Florida. Just last month they Arrested a Real Estate Development Company for Scamming Banks out of over 100 Million Dollars with fraudulent Sales and Appraisals . They Development Team was a Guy on Probation for Bad Checks and His Buddy with no Prior Real Estate Knowledge Yet Scammed the Pro’s for over 100 Mill !
Check this out for this week.
Things are going to Get Bad in Florida.
Sky Development Group, is at the center of a huge real estate fraud investigation that started in Citrus County, Florida .
Detectives say they think Natalia and Victor Wolf slipped out of the country in October, leaving behind more than 100 victims and taking more than $20 million from fraudulent transactions.
No charges have been filed. Investigators from the FBI, the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office and the North Miami Beach Police Department are building a case and trying to unravel how the deals were done.
For a while, Sky Development Group appeared to be operating legitimately. But problems with the company’s land sales started surfacing in October. Investigators say they don’t know whether the alleged scam was part of a long-orchestrated plot or a last-ditch attempt to deal with a plummeting real estate market.
One thing is clear: the elaborate scheme fooled retirees, seasoned real estate agents and big companies alike. The list of alleged victims grows daily.
Allegations include claims that Sky Development Group:
¥ Forged deeds and sold more than $1 million worth of property it didn’t own in one Citrus County development, Citrus Springs.
¥ Took millions of dollars for land without turning over the property to the buyers.
¥ Referred buyers to a fake title company managed by Natalia Wolf to close land deals.
¥ Took money for new homes it never built or never finished.
“This is just a nightmare. It truly is,” said Gail Tierney, a spokeswoman for the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office.
Scores of victims are searching for money and answers.
“Everybody believed them. Everybody bought into their scheme,” said Alex Hamilton, a Miami real estate agent who sold more than $500,000 of the company’s property and bought a lot for himself in Citrus Springs. “We’re all trying to figure out how they did this. We’re still reeling.
How can that happen? How can they sell land that they don’t own? Don’t the buyers get Title insurance to do a title check? Why didn’t the bank double check the title search?
What about the simple fact that a $500K house tends to take MUCH more out of people’s paycheck than a $4 gallon of gas does???
This is too funny. I am in Rochester right now.
Rochester was stagnant during the run-up AND when there was still a few jobs left at Kodak, Xerox, and B&L.
Everyone has left. At least there is plenty of parking and cheap beers when we all come back to visit our parents who can’t sell their homes.